Success is showing up.

As this series comes to a close, and specifically these last few days on success, I am excited to share a couple people currently inspiring me by showing up to their own epic stories.

S A R A G R O V E S

We were recently blessed with a Sara Groves / Andrew Peterson / Bebo Norman concert here in The Good Life for Bebo's last tour. There were so many reasons and so many ways it was a blessing. One, was in Bebo's introduction of Sara. He said something about her being a talented musician, but more than that he has been blessed to see her behind the stage as a loving wife and mother and so much more.

Later in the concert, she introduced her song "Why It Matters" with a story about a man that addressed injustice and war going on outside his apartment by standing in the square and playing music. Everyday he played beautiful music for an hour in the afternoon in the middle of riots and chaos all around. And as word got around about him doing this and as media came to share this oddity in war, slowly the attention shifted and the war came to an end.

She shares that like the man playing his music in the middle of a war, that is all we as Christians are called to do: Bring our God-given beauty into the chaos. And all of our beauty comes out in different ways, but it is just what this chaotic world needs. And Sara Groves does that for those close to her by how she lives as a wife and a mother and a friend, and she does it for the rest of us by sharing her music.

E M I L Y F R E E M A N

What I choose to call "epic living," Emily refers to as "art." She encourages us all to think of what we do--the dishes, working 9 to 5, disciplining the kids, loving the hubs--to think of it as art. All pointing to the original artist: God.

I have lots of favorite parts in her book A Million Little Ways so far, this is one of them and sums it up nicely:

I don't believe there is one great thing I was made to do in this world. I believe there is one great God I was made to glorify. And there will be many ways, even a million little ways, I will declare his glory with my life.

And she also does that as a wife, mother, friend, and for the rest of us, as a writer of books and on her blog. Her October series expounds on this topic with 31 Days of Living Art.

Because I don't want to live in fear of who God made me to be when He has said I am good and made for His glory.

Absolutely, Jessi does that as a wife, mother, friend and for the rest of us as a designer and blogger.

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The list goes on and on (I haven't even mentioned Mike Yankoski, Katie Davis, and Pamela Rosewell Moore or my own friends and family!), but I need to end this post somewhere.

Each of these people are epic in their own way. They even call it different things--art, wild and free, beauty. But it all comes from a similar path as Christians: Showing up when Christ calls. (Or, as I mentioned in day 1, saying yes.)

Bringing His love and His life and His message to this messed up world through our own lives. A simple offering of ourselves to be used by Him and for His glory.

When that happens, we'll find an epic success that we don't yet understand.

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Who inspires you by example to live the epic (or beautiful/artful/wild+free) life you're called to?